Marvel's Falling Sales 6 6

[Jeffro.]

Rom will be collected one day

By me, custom bound 

[Hamlet]

8 hours ago, Doktor said:

Well, even if they did... it wouldn't be for an indefinite period of time. It would be a contract that went from Day X to Day Y and when it expired, there wouldn't be any more copies of the collected editions printed/shipped to stores, and any digital copies that you "bought" from a digital distributor would simply vanish from your collection unless it was downloaded locally (and even then, I believe many of those apps can simply erase stuff that they aren't legally permitted to distribute anymore). It's like the longest Blockbuster rental in history that didn't include a late fee.

Point blank, digital sucks because it's an indefinite rental & not a purchase & can vanish without warning because a distribution/licensing contract ends. I mean, I take that risk every time I buy a movie or tv show from iTunes. But it's why I also make sure I download it to my local media server so that even if I can't watch it from my iTunes purchase history, I CAN watch it from my local media server on my appleTV.

I think digital is great given the extremely low price point of Marvel Unlimited.  It's $69/year, which is less than $6/month.  I don't read a ton, but even my light reading gets my cost down to under 0.50 per book.  

It doesn't preclude me from buying hard copies of books I feel that I want to own.  

It is simply a much better value proposition than buying new comics at their insane 3.99 price point.

 

 

[Doktor]

7 hours ago, Hamlet said:

I think digital is great given the extremely low price point of Marvel Unlimited.  It's $69/year, which is less than $6/month.  I don't read a ton, but even my light reading gets my cost down to under 0.50 per book.  

It doesn't preclude me from buying hard copies of books I feel that I want to own.  

It is simply a much better value proposition than buying new comics at their insane 3.99 price point.

I don't mean to say that digital is 100% awful, but that buying digital is a horrible value choice. Marvel Unlimited is OK (I still don't really like it much, but to each their own) but it's extremely limited. They have a horrible tendency of missing 1 issue in the middle of pretty much every single storyline I ever tried reading on there, so I just gave up & cancelled my subscription.

For reading back issues only, it's OK (even great, if it doesn't decide to randomly not have, for instance, part 4 of the 6 issue arc you're trying to read). But if you have any interest in staying even remotely current, it's worthless. It's 6-8 months behind on every title. And with Marvel publishing some titles at 16 issues per year, you're like 8-10 issues behind on some books. So comparing it to buying new comics at any price-point is an apples & oranges comparison. Marvel Unlimited is for reading old comics. Buying new comics is for reading new comics. They're not the same thing.

And it still doesn't change that you don't own any of it. And if for instance, they decided to launch a whole new distribution platform tomorrow & phase out their (for instance) Comixology association, all those comics you bought through Comixology? They vanish. As I mentioned above, if any part of the licensing of any of the content in the book expires, those books vanish from your collection. You're renting comics if you go digital. It's that simple. That rent might be for 6 years or 6 months or 6 days. You don't know until they just vanish because a license expired.

[Hamlet]

2 hours ago, Doktor said:

I don't mean to say that digital is 100% awful, but that buying digital is a horrible value choice. Marvel Unlimited is OK (I still don't really like it much, but to each their own) but it's extremely limited. They have a horrible tendency of missing 1 issue in the middle of pretty much every single storyline I ever tried reading on there, so I just gave up & cancelled my subscription.

For reading back issues only, it's OK (even great, if it doesn't decide to randomly not have, for instance, part 4 of the 6 issue arc you're trying to read). But if you have any interest in staying even remotely current, it's worthless. It's 6-8 months behind on every title. And with Marvel publishing some titles at 16 issues per year, you're like 8-10 issues behind on some books. So comparing it to buying new comics at any price-point is an apples & oranges comparison. Marvel Unlimited is for reading old comics. Buying new comics is for reading new comics. They're not the same thing.

And it still doesn't change that you don't own any of it. And if for instance, they decided to launch a whole new distribution platform tomorrow & phase out their (for instance) Comixology association, all those comics you bought through Comixology? They vanish. As I mentioned above, if any part of the licensing of any of the content in the book expires, those books vanish from your collection. You're renting comics if you go digital. It's that simple. That rent might be for 6 years or 6 months or 6 days. You don't know until they just vanish because a license expired.

I guess since I haven't thought buying new comics was worth the money for about 25 years (outside of an issue here and there, and some Ultimate Spiderman trades), being 6 months behind hasn't bothered me.  Frankly, its not the newest issues being released that I'm reading anyway.

I did enjoy binge reading the Ultimate X-men, and Astonishing X-men, and a bunch of other stuff that would have cost hundreds of dollars to buy when it came out, but I didn't bother because who wants to pay $4 for a 10 minute read?  At $6/month though, I enjoy being able to read say 6 hours of comics a month.  That's a good value. 

New comics (especially most Marvel comics) are a terrible value, IMO. 

[ComicConnoisseur]

2 hours ago, Doktor said:

Comixology association, all those comics you bought through Comixology? They vanish. As I mentioned above, if any part of the licensing of any of the content in the book expires, those books vanish from your collection. You're renting comics if you go digital. It's that simple. That rent might be for 6 years or 6 months or 6 days. You don't know until they just vanish because a license expired.

One thing that should be pointed out is Amazon own Comixology. The odds that Comixology will fold are slim to none. I get your points about them vanishing,but Amazon is like a gold standard company with plenty of upside that won't disappear overnight.

[ComicConnoisseur]

15 minutes ago, Hamlet said:

I guess since I haven't thought buying new comics was worth the money for about 25 years (outside of an issue here and there, and some Ultimate Spiderman trades), being 6 months behind hasn't bothered me.  Frankly, its not the newest issues being released that I'm reading anyway.

I did enjoy binge reading the Ultimate X-men, and Astonishing X-men, and a bunch of other stuff that would have cost hundreds of dollars to buy when it came out, but I didn't bother because who wants to pay $4 for a 10 minute read?  At $6/month though, I enjoy being able to read say 6 hours of comics a month.  That's a good value. 

New comics (especially most Marvel comics) are a terrible value, IMO. 

100 percent agree with this post. 

[Doktor]

4 minutes ago, Hamlet said:

I guess since I haven't thought buying new comics was worth the money for about 25 years (outside of an issue here and there, and some Ultimate Spiderman trades), being 6 months behind hasn't bothered me.  Frankly, its not the newest issues being released that I'm reading anyway.

I did enjoy binge reading the Ultimate X-men, and Astonishing X-men, and a bunch of other stuff that would have cost hundreds of dollars to buy when it came out, but I didn't bother because who wants to pay $4 for a 10 minute read?  At $6/month though, I enjoy being able to read say 6 hours of comics a month.  That's a good value. 

New comics (especially most Marvel comics) are a terrible value, IMO. 

I don't disagree that new comics are a terrible value (mostly because the stories suck & they're wildly overpriced) but if comparing apples & apples (new digital issues vs new physical issues), physical wins every time because it's ownership & not rental.

And yeah, for reading back issues, digital is fine assuming all the issues are there & you just want to read an old series once with no expectation that you'll ever be able to go back & re-read it at a future date. Digital is great if you're looking at reading as the disposable entertainment that comics were originally designed to be. No different than Netflix with old tv shows & movies, or going to the library to check out a book you want to read but don't really care enough to own.

I mean, this sorta goes back to collector vs reader. If you're exclusively a reader and don't really care about collecting, digital binge-reading is mostly good for you. Like renting a movie or dvd of a tv show. But if you are a collector, then physical is the obvious choice. Partially because there's zero value to digital products. And partially because you're only renting it & it can vanish at any time.

I can understand the appeal of Marvel Unlimited for readers. And the appeal of physical for the collectors. I just don't understand the appeal of people buying new issue digital comics at the same price-point as printed. It's all the cost of the print, with none of the ownership & permanence & potential secondary market value.

[Doktor]

28 minutes ago, ComicConnoisseur said:

One thing that should be pointed out is Amazon own Comixology. The odds that Comixology will fold are slim to none. I get your points about them vanishing,but Amazon is like a gold standard company with plenty of upside that won't disappear overnight.

I understand that, but Amazon is a business that sometimes ceases doing business with suppliers. Apple and Google spring to mind. You can't buy Apple products from Amazon anymore (maybe this changed that again, but for a year +, I know you couldn't) (except thru 3rd party sellers, and 3rd party retailers are a whole other can of worms in the digital world). That distribution contract ended & wasn't renewed because of competition reasons between Apple, Amazon & Google in the realm of streaming devices & mobile devices. For physical products, that's no big deal because well... if you bought a laptop or a phone or whatever 2 years ago, you have already received your phone or your laptop or whatever that you bought from Amazon. You don't need amazon anymore for dealing with that product. But for digital products (like comics), if any publisher decided to cut off their business arrangement with Comixology for whatever reason (maybe Comixology wants a larger cut of the product? Maybe the publisher wants to make their books exclusive to their own distribution app. Whatever the reason, licensing agreements end all the time & are sometimes renewed & sometimes not renewed. It happens monthly with Netflix coming & going content), then the books you already purchased will vanish from your collection unless they're saved locally.

Look at it this way; with a physical product, the publisher ships it to a distributor who ships it to a store who sells it to you and you take it home and store it permanently(ish), right?

With digital, the publisher sends the file to the distributor who then stores it FOR YOU and send copies of it to you, as you demand it, and then you essentially "give it back" because you're not storing it locally. When the publisher and the distributor reach an impasse in their business arrangement, the distributor is no longer permitted to distribute the same file that it had distributed for maybe years. They basically cannot send that file anymore. So unless you have it stored locally, after the last time you "gave back the file" by NOT storing it locally, the distributor can't send it to you again. So you've lost access to that file until the publisher & the distributor start work out a new business arrangement.

EDIT:

Maybe I'll use an example: A reader buys the newest issue of ASM thru Comixology today for the same price as the print version (Say ASM #26) and they can read it once or read it 500 times. It doesn't matter. But they didn't save it to their devices. They are storing it on Comixology's "cloud" storage.

Now, say it's 3 years from now. Marvel has decided that Comixology wants too much of a cut in the distribution or they just decide "we want to launch our OWN new-release comic app" and decides to make their books exclusive to their app and stop distributing thru Comixology. The current contract expires & is not renewed.

Now that reader decides "I want to re-read that copy of ASM that I bought 3 years ago" and fires up their comixology app. They look in their "library" or whatever Comixology calls it, and low & behold, ASM #26 isn't there. It's vanished. Because Comixology isn't permitted to distribute it anymore because that contract runs out. Now the reader is out the book that they thought they were buying because they didn't understand how the digital marketplace works and that the most that they're doing is "renting" that book.

Another example?

A publisher is making a comic about a licensed property like GI Joe. They publish the comics & sell them in print & digital. A reader buys the digital version on Comixology and reads it. A year later, the license holder decides to not renew that license with that publisher or the publisher decides it's not worth the license fee to renew because the comic didn't sell well enough. Whatever. The license ends. Now, the reader goes to re-read that licensed property comic that they bought from Comixology and again, it's nowhere to be found. Because the license has expired. So it can no longer be sold or distributed.

Edited April 26, 2017 by Doktor

[Chadwick]

21 hours ago, AndyFish said:

Comics don't have the entertainment value associated with their price point.  Even at the cheapest point, DC's $2.99 how long does it take to read a story?  Ten minutes?  If I'm a kid with an allowance and I like to read I can buy a "real book" for $6 in the paperback section or a Kindle Copy for 99c and have something that takes me at the very least a few days to read.

We're moving closer and closer to Trade Paperbacks being the norm and pamphlets going away.  Diamond wants it that way.  Any really GOOD comic shop understands the shelf life of a TPB is infinite while a monthly has about 3 months before it's in the back issue bin.   But then Marvel does things like have $35 trade paperbacks?  Insane.  The $100 Omnibus books?  Is ANYONE paying full retail for those?  I have a huge collection of them, but I think the most I've ever paid for one was $40.

Digital is also a huge solution but you're never going to see it eclipse print when a digital copy is the same price as the print edition.  Where is the logic in that?  No printing expense involved and the price remains the same?   Why? Because the publishers know if they did all digital at 50c or a dollar they'd end print completely.  But the bottom line would be higher overall sales.  Like it or not, and I know a lot of people on here don't-- digital is growing and THAT is how most of the new generation will read.  When I was in Japan last year EVERYONE was reading on their phones and tablets, and a lot of what they were reading was Manga.

But imagine if you took the endless archives of back issues Marvel and DC has and offered the digital versions of individual issues for 50c or two for a dollar.  They would ignite sales of books that they've long since made money on because they are out of print and they'd hook a new generation of kids on the good stuff.

When I was doing a comic art class for middle school kids a few years ago I brought in stacks of books for them to have and to read.  The first batch I brought in was Jim Lee style work--- thinking the kids would like the new stuff.  To a kid, they found it hard to understand what was happening.  The storytelling was confusing.  Then I brought in a bunch of Marvel Tales featuring Ditko Spider-Man and they ate it up.  Wanted more even. 

That showed me first hand that we feed the cult with ridiculous layouts and pinups every other page, but we lose people who haven't been reading comics for years.

We need more people like Jim Shooter back in the leadership of these companies-- he understood that every comic book was someone's first.

 

+1

I haven't read this whole thread, but why doesn't marvel just go back to printing on newsprint and drop the price point to $1? They are just going to end up in a trade anyway, if you enjoy heavy glossy pages get them there. I know I would buy into way more runs if they were a dollar an issue. Let LCS's and conventions do variants.

I recently picked up a dozen or so of the $1 true believers to give to a friend's 12 year old and they blew his mind, she said he couldn't wait to bring them to school to show off. I gave the same kid a few issues of superior spider-man last year - he thumbed through them and went back to halo, but give him Xmen #1, GSXM 1, wolverine 1, hulk 181, etc and he went nuts. So, now that I got him hooked, what am I supposed to tell him? Go spend $4.99 on an issue of the new wolverine run? Nope, get a trade that has a full story.

Marvel needs to bring back a single unified voice to the brand, give me a soapbox to read, give me back a bullpen, house ads, give me back the feeling of being in a club and grow excitement for new artists and writers in the books and not on variant covers or online. Bring back legacy numbering, and when they hire Starlin and Perez to do 12 issues of Spider-gwen, just put the run number on the cover next to the series number, then stick those issues in a trade.

I would be way more interested in a marvel with 10 solid running series and not the mess I see when I look at the racks now. 

 

[UnboxingTreasures]

Take it somewhere else you two. Please.

[romanheart]

titling-at-windmillls-259-what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-marvel-comics-anyway

Here's someone's take on their downfall.

[piper]

14 minutes ago, romanheart said:

titling-at-windmillls-259-what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-marvel-comics-anyway

Here's someone's take on their downfall.

 

Thanks for sharing that...

I would start by dropping the price to $2.99 and shrink the number of titles being produced...

[Ken Aldred]

I wouldn't even say that it's a particularly recent phenomenon being discussed there.  I got tired of Marvel when, for example, they shifted from just having the Brubaker Captain America comic to suddenly soliciting half a dozen or so additional continued or mini-series titles, and did the same for Thor and Iron Man and other characters associated with the first wave of Marvel movies.  That volume, together with the price hike to $3-99, made me give up years ago.  

[Wall-Crawler]

Regardless of the valid assessments here, one thing I have wondered is why the heck Marvel does not have a "trailer" for their comic books/trades and/or the 1-888-Comic Book # just before audiences go to watch said Marvel movie? To me they seem to be missing a heck of an opportunity to promote their printed products to a mass, captive audience...-COMIC-BOOK

[1Cool]

33 minutes ago, Wall-Crawler said:

Regardless of the valid assessments here, one thing I have wondered is why the heck Marvel does not have a "trailer" for their comic books/trades and/or the 1-888-Comic Book # just before audiences go to watch said Marvel movie? To me they seem to be missing a heck of an opportunity to promote their printed products to a mass, captive audience...-COMIC-BOOK

Great idea!  Give away a free comic with each marvel movie ticket.  People can at least spend the 10 minutes before the show flipping thu it.  I'm sure Mile High or MyComicShop would pay quite a premium for being allowed to put full page ads in the giveaway books.

[Ken Aldred]

Much wider catchment, better promotion than the currently very limited, once-a-year Free Comic Book Day at the LCS.

Good idea.

Edited April 26, 2017 by Ken Aldred

[Prince Namor]

4 hours ago, Chadwick said:

+1

I haven't read this whole thread, but why doesn't marvel just go back to printing on newsprint and drop the price point to $1? They are just going to end up in a trade anyway, if you enjoy heavy glossy pages get them there. I know I would buy into way more runs if they were a dollar an issue. Let LCS's and conventions do variants.

I recently picked up a dozen or so of the $1 true believers to give to a friend's 12 year old and they blew his mind, she said he couldn't wait to bring them to school to show off. I gave the same kid a few issues of superior spider-man last year - he thumbed through them and went back to halo, but give him Xmen #1, GSXM 1, wolverine 1, hulk 181, etc and he went nuts. So, now that I got him hooked, what am I supposed to tell him? Go spend $4.99 on an issue of the new wolverine run? Nope, get a trade that has a full story.

Marvel needs to bring back a single unified voice to the brand, give me a soapbox to read, give me back a bullpen, house ads, give me back the feeling of being in a club and grow excitement for new artists and writers in the books and not on variant covers or online. Bring back legacy numbering, and when they hire Starlin and Perez to do 12 issues of Spider-gwen, just put the run number on the cover next to the series number, then stick those issues in a trade.

I would be way more interested in a marvel with 10 solid running series and not the mess I see when I look at the racks now. 

 

Simple economics.

If a retailer buys 100 copies of ASM every month, that’s $3.99 cover priced and his discount is 58%, he makes $231.42 off those comics. (If he sells them all)

At $1.00 (58% discount)….he would have to sell FOUR TIMES as many copies to make the same amount of money.

Meaning EVERYONE who sells Amazing Spider-man, would have to sell 4 times as many copies of that, as well as EVERY Marvel Comic they sell…

It just wouldn’t work.

 

We like to believe there’s a huge number of people out there who don’t buy comics anymore because of the price…

But I can think of a whole bunch of other reasons…. my own personal one’s, as I can afford to buy whatever it is I want to read.

 

The stories are the same derivative stuff I’ve seen for the 45 years I’ve been reading comics. Somebody else is Iron Man, really? Been done. Norman Osborn is back? Yawn. Captain America has been brainwashed into teaming up with the bad guys? Seen it. Crossover? Every year. New #1? Again?

Why would I want to read the same damn thing over and over again for 45 years?

 

And those stories are, in the first place, aimed at a younger mind set. I thought regular comics (even superhero comics) were mostly for kids, even when I was 14.

I got spoiled by Tales of the Zombie, Savage Tales, Savage Sword of Conan, Heavy Metal, Creepy, Eerie… Mainstream superhero comics just read like kid stuff to me. 

Guys like Ed Brubaker and Scott Snyder know how to spice things up and make it read like quality entertainment… but broken down… mainstream superhero comics are editorially protected from any real sense of danger or suspense.

 

That’s why I can’t help but chuckle (and I know someone will get mad at me for saying it but), when Captain America turns out to be a Hydra Agent for some storyline.

Not only will it ‘be ok’, because, Jiminy Freakin’ Christmas it’s just a comic, BUT, it’ll be okay because a year or two from now it may not even have happened in the ‘Marvel Universe Proper’ or it wasn’t even Cap or whatever they do to retro it or fix.

 

It’s a gimmick. A Card Trick. A slight of hand.

 

And I’ve SEEN it in one form or another so many times, it just doesn’t entertain me.

 

You may as well be still sitting there dumbfounded at 33 or 44 or 50 years of age watching your Uncle do that hand trick that makes his thumb look like it’s broken off - to me it looks like the same thing.

Why at 50 years of age would you still be entertained and fooled by THAT?

 

I’m not saying you all are wrong. Some people just like it because… they like it. It's cool. I just don’t personally get it. I need MORE than what any superhero comic can provide me.

I LOVE comics. I just need more than what ‘superhero’ comics can provide me. And no amount of discounting of the price has anything to do with it.

 

[Ken Aldred]

As far as the current type of Captain America plotline is concerned, Chuck, eventually it'll be double and triple secret agents, and then eventually even more convoluted, until at some point in the future this type of plotting will get as ridiculous and intolerable as it did in the Alias TV series. There's already a bad case of diminishing returns, though.

Edited April 26, 2017 by Ken Aldred

[Prince Namor]

On 4/25/2017 at 11:07 AM, ComicConnoisseur said:

Maybe they should get rid of those creators and clean house? Let Shooter find a new bunch of creators like he did when he had to start over again with Valiant.

 

David Lapham was a new talent, but industry veterans Barry Windsor-Smith, Bob Layton, Paris Cullins, and Don Perlin hardly make it 'a new bunch of creators'.

On 4/25/2017 at 11:07 AM, ComicConnoisseur said:

Can be done. They just need a strong leader with a vision of what Marvel Comics is just like Keven Feinge's vision has in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 

We don't see Keven Feinge caving in or trying to please the media like Alonso now do we?

We don't??? Marvel does 100X more press and media interviews for those movies than all of their comic line combined. When you make a movie you kiss the media BUTT, because you know that any bad review could set in motion a chain reaction of bad reviews and hurt the success of it.

On 4/25/2017 at 11:07 AM, ComicConnoisseur said:

Keven Feinge has a long-term plan,while Alonso is all about the flavor of the month.

 

I have no idea what that means.

[Prince Namor]

On 4/25/2017 at 1:15 PM, ComicConnoisseur said:

The odds are Shooter won't come back because he is in his 60s now. They need some one with a strong vision, and not a group think who panders to what the mainstream journalists think.

I don't understand what that means.